“There is some agreement about the need to crack down on unscrupulousemployers. One is their exploitation of individuals in the United Kingdom; another is that by treating individuals in the way they do they undercut legitimate employers who obey the law and follow the rules. That iswrong. Unscrupulous employers also help to facilitate one type of illegal migration, in which individuals are, frankly, duped into coming to the United Kingdom with the promise of a better life only to end up working in unsatisfactory conditions and not receiving a good income, and so would have been better off if they had never made the journey here. That type of path, which sometimes also involves organised crime, is something that we all want to crack down on.

Enforcement is welcome. It will make it more difficult for unscrupulousemployers to employ people illegally and improve the position of those who choose to follow our lawsand not exploitpeople, because they will not face unfair competition.”

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Now we know how Harper knew so much about unscrupulous employers. He was talking about himself.

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Perhaps we should have looked at those illegal immigrant ‘go home’ vans – so beloved of Mark Harper – more closely:

Mark Harper obviously isn’t an unscrupulous employer as anyone reading the BBC website on the topic will see. However, he is an incompetent one who especially as an MP should have been 100% certain that his cleaner was working legally.

the civil service tom is not good across the board what Mark Harper failed to realise is that in like the way the DWP treat benefit claimants is that you cant rely on what your told and just because he was told his worker that he employed was OK she was not

he should have realised by the nationality of the person concerned in the first place that it looked very odd so he lacked judgement at best and was right to resign

those that allowed the person to stay should also be sacked for gross negligence

if it were me I’d be doing it myself but these Oxford chaps don’t forget have never seen their parents clean or in most cases have never seen their parents work hard at all and it that which is the main problem

I disagree. I would prefer that ministers spend their time doing the job properly, rather than doing their own cleaning. But spending a week doing the job of a cleaner (or any normal job) would be a shocking wake-up call for most of the politicians of any party.

Perhaps the state could pay single parents enough so that they can employ a cleaner, leaving them free to do the jobs they have been forced into properly and free some quality time up for them to spend with their children.

Here’s one for Clive- Harper was educated at the Headlands Comprehensive School and Swindon College. He then studied philosophy, politics and economics at Brasenose College, Oxford, where like David Cameron he studied under Professor Vernon Bogdanor.[4]
On graduation in 1991 he joined KPMG as an auditor. After qualifying as a chartered accountant, in 1995 he joined Intel Corporation as a senior financial analyst, becoming the finance manager in 1997, and operations manager from 2000 (wiki)

Mark Harper threw himself in the back of a police van to avoid debating the sale of the Forest of Dean with his constituents – video on youtube

Mark Harper advised people in his constituency who DO NOT have computers to keep up to date by looking on his website – video on youtube

Mark Harper always has his expense claims in the middle of those MPs claiming – not too much, not too little – hidden in the mass of abusers

Mark harper this lead MP on the racist vans around London telling immigrants to go home

We all know about KPMG’s role in the ‘delivery of services’ by private firms and ATOS don’t we…?

Well he did come from an ordinary background but was able to go Oxford despite that and then had a successful career in finance which appears to be a crime to some people. Surely upwards social mobility is a good thing. He may have initiated some misguided wrong hesded policies but that doesn’t make him a nasty person or perhaps all non left wing people are by definition nasty.

Maybe he was a very good accountant and finance manager, but he was cr@p as a minister. His attitude to immigration policies seems to have been uncaring as well as ineffectual, and that probably also equates to nasty.

Most people on this site (and elsewhere) tend to think that everybody on the other side of the political fence from them is nasty. I prefer to look case by case, and you know what?… almost all senior politicians, irrespective of party, DO seem to be selfish, power hungry, uncaring and nasty.

Boz – The vast majority of MPs vote exactly how their party whips tell them to. This begs the question… why have individual MPs at all? You would get exactly the same result by just voting for a national party, and forget about constituency representation. We would also save paying for all these mindless drone MP’s salaries and expenses!

We all have a responsibility to hold our MPs to account about WHY they vote a certain way (preferably before they cast their vote). You can then judge them by their answers. I have done so many times, and my MP has proved herself to simply be an idiot Labour ‘yes’ woman with no rational opinions or arguments of her own. All she is capable of doing is blindly repeating the party line.

Have you ever emailed your MP about an important issue? If not, try it and see what happens…

Was I asking you? I was asking the question to Boz because I do not know what the going rate is for cleaners these days, so do not know if it was higher or lower, does that answer satisfy you or would you like me to google it to make you happy.
Sometimes we like to engage with other like minded commentors.

If I want to ask Boz a question silly or not that is up to me, I have answered enough stupid questions from you out of courtesy, until I tired of your constant badgering.
One question to a fellow commentor such as Boz, not you, should not incur your mocking, dictatorial reply. Talk about being over the top!